


We of Good Intentions

by Sanjiago



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Family Drama, Family Secrets, Other, Spoliers, tragic background
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-09 06:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1972536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanjiago/pseuds/Sanjiago
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People rarely get saved, as Sanguine knows from experience. But in the case of Tanith Low, the god-killers and the trouble that's on the way, there may still be a possibility of salvation. Even if there's no way it'll come easy. You never know what could happen when strong-minded people get their heads together and are prepared to do anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When Common Powers Meet

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically just an alternative version for Tanith's possession to play out. Billy-Ray's motives come from a vastly different place. Warning for spoilers for the series. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. This transpires before TLSoDM and follows a different course of events. All credit for characters and plot to the Golden God, blessed be Landy.

It occurred to Kit that this lady sitting in front of her was well-schooled in keeping a neutral face. Almost impossible to read, she'd make a hell of a card sharp if she ever went in for that sort of thing. However, something told Kit she probably didn't.  
"So, tell me. Where did you hear this rumour?"  
The lady's lips tightened by the tiniest fraction.  
"Is it merely a rumour?"  
"Well-"  
"If that is the case, tell me now. I do not have time to play juvenile games."  
Kit could hear it now. The strains in the voice, almost imperceptible. Almost.  
"Alright ma'am, seeing as you've come so far. It's true. It happened. However, there is absolutely no guarantee I could successfully do it twice. First time nearly killed us both, I was considerably weakened for years. So tell me, why should I be considering risking so much for a girl I have never met?"  
The woman opposite sniffed.  
"I can pay."  
Kit nodded. "Oh, I'm sure. You don't exactly look to be struggling. But this? This is my town. I look out for the people here. Got stuff going on, kind of stuff you may not even understand. Got people counting on me to live, to be alive. It ain't worth risking it all for something common as cash."  
Her guest surveyed her coolly. "what is it you want?"  
"We have trouble here. Hectic stuff. What we need is a magically powerful object. And I'm not talking about some random ring of power or toilet bowl of destiny. I'm talking real juice here. I'm talking God-killers."  
Her companion was silently for a long moment. Then: "I will endeavour to procure you one. If I do so, will you consider my side fulfilled?"  
Kit nodded.  
"That I will. You get me what I need and I'll do what you've asked for. Understand though, there are no true guarantees here. It could fail, kill her, split the earth wide. It's not an exact science."  
A flash across the face. Fear. gone as quickly as it had arrived, but Kit saw it.  
Kit hesitated, then said: "I'm someone's momma too, y'know. I'll do what I can for your little girl. I swear."  
The woman breathed deeply, then stood. "Very good. I will be in touch."  
"You do that."  
Kit watched the other woman leave, saw the minuscule hitch in her step. then the elegant Englishwoman was gone, into the desert night. Kit leaned back in her chair and sighed.  
"Went that well, huh?"  
Kit continued to stare morosely at her drink. Adelaide sipped from hers, eyeing her friend. "What did you do?"  
"Exactly what you said I shouldn't ha done. Gave my word."  
Adelaide shook her head. "You damned fool."  
"I know."  
"She really got to ya with that whole mama bear thing."  
"What can I say Del?"  
"What you always say. That you got a soft ol' heart for all the lost kiddies. And those lost mothers. You poor sweet fool."  
Kit ran a hand through her scruffy close-cropped blond hair. She turned to the man at the next table.  
"Hey Joshua."  
"Yes m'm?"  
"Be a honey and go fetch my nephew. Got something needs discussing with him."  
Joshua nodded, stood and walked away.  
Adelaide shook her head. "Billy-Ray ain't gonna let you down easy for this. Boy's gonna flip his lid."  
Kit grimaced. "Hell, I know it."  
"You planning on sending him for this little scheme?"  
Kit nodded. "He's the best at what he does."  
Adelaide laughed. "Hell, I always thought you were."  
Kit smiled. Inside, her guts were starting to twist.


	2. Family's A Bad Word

"No."  
"Oh, come on now..."  
"I'm not coming on. I'm not doing anything. You wanna make stupid deals, that's on you. Don't drag me into this."  
Adelaide had been spot on. Billy-Ray's lid was pretty well flipped at this point. Kit regarded her nephew wearily.  
"I swore to that lady, if she helped us get what we need, I'd root that dark thing out of her little girl..."  
"Little girl! She ain't a little girl! She's a bloody ferocious fighter with a damn huge sword!"  
Ah. Still sore about bein' sliced open. She couldn't blame him. When he had dragged himself home with his insides all a mess, she'd seen red herself.  
"Wasn't her that cut you though. Was that kid Cain, am I right?"  
Billy-Ray kicked at the dust, scowling. "Yeah, well. They're all one big happy team, right? Lemme tell you, Low would have sliced me if she'd got half a chance."  
Kit frowned. "Could this have anything to do with you being involved in, I don't know, plans that maim and nearly kill these people? Billy-Ray, I said it once, I'll say it again, being a mercenary is not doing you any favours. God, this girl Cain's a kid. What you doing, nearly killing a kid? That ain't how I raised you."  
Billy-Ray's head snapped up.  
"Oh yeah, like you don't use my work when it suits you! Goddamit, she works for the skeleton! He put Dreylan away. He's responsible for-"  
Kit winced, held up a hand to cut him off. Dreylan's arrest had been a crippling blow to his family. What had come after, however, could hardly bear thinking about.  
"Ain't the issue right now. Fact is I need you to do this. My word ain't no joke, and we bloody well need those weapons. Can't keep this town standing without them and you know it."  
He scowled at her, then spat on the ground. "I could have got the damn things alone, if you'd just trusted me to do it. But no, had 'ta do something dumb. Fine. Fine. I'll go. But I'm saying now it's a huge bloody mistake. If she finishes what Cain started, it's on you."  
Kit flinched, but he'd already turned away from her and was walking back to the ramshackle old bar, its lights still on and cheerful music emanating from the inside.  
She sat abruptly on the dusty road. Hell if that boy didn't know how to make his remarks hit home. She tried to remember how he'd been before, but that was getting harder and harder as the years passed. He hadn't always been cynical and bitter, she could recall that much. Used to laugh, not that mean, hard laugh, but like the kid he'd been.  
Don't think about it, she told herself. Don't torture yourself with it no more.  
But she'd never been good at heeding advice, 'specially not her own. So she sat there in the dark, kept company with painful thoughts, until Adelaide finally came down, helped her up and guided her back to her home.  
Next day Billy-Ray was gone. He'd taken the instructions and details she'd written and disappeared. Jennie had been up to see him go and was morose and tight-lipped with her mother. Kit spent the day inspecting the rodeo pits and trying not to dwell on how she may have just sent her sister's last surviving son to a brutal death.  
She was about seventy percent sure he'd come back. Not bad, as her odds went.


	3. Say What You Mean, Be Mean When You Say It

"Progress report?"  
Kit rubbed her eyes. "Lord, Del. Only just saw the damn thing, slow up."  
"So I take that to mean you've read it through a dozen times already."  
Kit paused. "...Yeah."  
"Did you get any sleep?"  
"Coupla minutes."  
Adelaide muttered something under her breath and pushed a coffee at Kit. "Drink. You look like the risen dead."  
Ruth, who'd been sitting at the bar, snapped her head around, dark eyes wide.  
"Where?!"  
Adelaide snorted. "No Ruth, no risen dead here, I'm saying that Kit...never bloody mind, quit eavesdropping and eat yer waffles. And hands off the gun, s'making me nervous."  
Kit ignored the exchange, pulling out a crumpled sheet of paper and flattening it on the table.  
"Halfway through on the God-Killers. Says they're getting' grief from the opposing group."  
Del sipped her own coffee. "Why can't they just bring the weapons they have?"  
Kit shook her head. "I wish. But Low's gotta catch 'em all. She'd smell a rat if he tried to divert the course now."  
"Yeah, I s'pose. Hang on a second, did you just make a reference to-what's that weird ass kiddie's cartoon called again?"  
"Pokemon. And I think you meant to say awesome. Not weird."  
"Oh come on now, you a grown woman."  
"Well you recognised the quote, what's that say?"  
"Says I got an eight year old grandkid who loves that show. You got a adult daughter, what's your excuse?"  
"I will not excuse myself for love."  
"Lord...oh, forget it. The opposition, who they got, 'sides from them boys that call themselves dead?"  
"The Dead Men."  
"Damn silly name, I always said."  
"Well...they got this one kid, Aurora Jane. American. Helluva good rep for combat. Then there's Jones, came out of somewhere in Africa, might be Mozambique, haven't uncovered exactly where yet, he does those damn eye-beams. Donegan Bane, English, Monster Hunter. And the other Monster Hunter, the Irishman. All pretty formidable, to hear people tell it."  
"And those two, the Monster hunters, they wrote those books Earl's always reading'? He loves those books, always quoting 'em at me. Gets damn annoying."  
"Well, you're always quoting Star Trek."  
"Stick to the subject, Kit. So, that all of 'em?"  
"Well, then there this German guy, Wilhelm Scream."  
"Name's Scream? Seriously?"  
"Yeah, I know, I know. Anyhow, he's a double, so Billy says. Bit bloody useless by all accounts."  
Adelaide nodded slowly. "So...you liking the odds?"  
"Ain't the other team that bothers me. What gets me is how he's gonna trick her about the weapons. How he's gonna get her here. Not gonna be simple."  
"Then maybe you should have thought twice before sending him." said a voice from behind Kit.  
Kit sighed and turned to meet her daughter's eyes.  
"Jennie, you gotta quit worrying now. Billy's a smart boy, he's been doing this sorta thing for decades."  
Jennie's arms were folded. She was not looking to be in a particularly gentle mood. Near as tall as Kit with tightly braided brown hair and a thin mouth, she was particularly good at making folk squirm uncomfortably under her disapproving glare.  
"Alright. Say he does it all. What then? You gonna near kill yourself for the sake of some stranger. Was spending years in pain something you were really so eager to repeat?"  
"Not this again-"  
"Did you even think about us?"  
Adelaide spoke suddenly. "Don't you talk that way to your momma! All she do is think about you, 'bout this town. You weren't even there when all that with David happened, don't act like you were."  
"But-"  
Adelaide cut across her. " Yeah, it hurt her. But it saved him, gave him his life back. Weren't no small thing and sure weren't easy, but what's important never is. Kit may be an utter fool, a martyr and a pain in the ass..."  
Kit frowned. "That's a bit harsh."  
"Shuddup. She's the genuine article. Outta be proud of her. She always proud o' you!"  
Jennie glared, but the effect was ruined by how her eyes were starting to look shiny from the effort of not crying. Kit felt awful.  
"Honey..."  
Too late. Jennie'd stormed out, slamming the door and making Missus Deeds, who'd been sitting by it humming to herself, fall off her chair.  
Kit looked back at Del. "Thanks a lot Del. Did'ya have to go off on one? She's just scared."  
"Ain't no call for disrespect."  
"I don't know. You disrespect me all the time."  
"Yeah, well. I'm yer friend. And you have enough to deal with right now, don't need Jennie throwin' her lot in."  
"Del. She's my kid, you outta let me deal with it."  
"Fine, fine. Whatever."  
Kit closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair.  
"Have I buggered up?"  
Adelaide smiled. "Yeah. But it's done now. Noway else to go but forward."  
"S'pose."  
Her friend was silent. She extended her hand and placed it on top of Kit's.  
They sat there in silence and neither voiced her thoughts. Some things were best kept in.


	4. Momma Knows Best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Universe credited to Derek Landy. Blessed be he.

She found Jennie in the rodeo pit.   
Dara, who was sitting on the gate, smiled at her happily.  
"She gonna break the record any day now, Kit. Earl says she the best since Nana hung up her spurs!"  
Kit smiled and playful tweaked one of Dara's neat braids. Del did them up for her regularly, kid always looked pretty as a picture. Sweet natured too. One of the most sweet natured people in Kit's life at the moment. Especially compared to how Jennie had been since Billy had headed out. Kit bit the inside of her mouth as she looked to where her girl was riding Sampson, biggest bull they had.  
They called them bulls but they weren't. They were...like bulls. Large. Four legs. Horns. Wet fleshy noses. Hooves. But the eyes were too big. too dark. The hide was too tough, the backs too broad. They may have had the same common ancestors as bulls but some form of magic had altered them. They were meaner than bulls too.  
But Jennie had the gift. She could stay on longer, dodge from the hooves when she fell. Even so, Kit's heart got tight whenever she watched her kid in the rodeo. All it would take was one time she couldn't move fast enough...but then Kit was the momma, she was set to worry. Every damn day.  
Jennie slipped to the right and Kit 's breath hitched. But then her girl pulled herself upright, grinning that hard grin. And Kit remembered.  
Sometimes she'd go months without remembering. she actively avoided remembering the past when she could. Jennie though...the story of Jennie was different. It started in pain and got better, as opposed to all the times things had just gotten worse. 

Kit had been woke the night Jennie had come into their lives. Woke by an evil dream. She'd got up and over to Billy, who'd been asleep in the next room and none too pleased at being woke. She'd been adamant, and he'd soon seen that what she needed him to do was important, even though she'd not been able to tell him what for or why. They'd tunnelled out into the middle of the desert. There's been nothing but sand and dryness. She'd looked and looked and had no idea what it was she'd been looking for. Just that she had to find it. Sometimes she still woke in a cold sweat, having dreamed she'd never found what she'd been looking for that night.  
Then she'd heard it. It wasn't crying. Too weak for that. It was the sound a small, helpless creature in pain would make, because that was what it had been. she'd picked Jennie up out of the dust, and she'd had no words. Billy, bless, had done what was required, taken them back home, fetched the doctor.  
She'd been so damn small.  
At the time Kit had been so focused on the kid. It was a few days later when she realised what she wanted to do to the ones who'd left her there. And it was no garden variety vengeful feeling. It was her own brand of pure wrath. That's when she'd known. If there was anything that could send Kit spiralling into a murderous rage, it was her family being done wrong. She'd thought about giving Jennie to one of the women who already had a solidly structured family. For about half-an-hour. But when she'd felt the rage, she realised she couldn't do that. It was her, Billy and Jennie from then on out.

Kit pulled herself out of the memories as Jennie walked to her. Not a small helpless thing anymore.   
Jennie glowered for a minute. Then her anger seemed to collapse on itself from within.  
Kit smiled sadly. "Come talk, baby?"  
Jennie was still for a beat. then she sighed and clambered over the gate.


End file.
